Powerline Adapters & Wireless Extenders Introduction If you suffer poor wireless connectivity in parts of your property, one solution is to run Ethernet cables from your routers LAN ports throughout your house to these devices. However, there are two main disadvantages, the cabling run can be difficult & unsightly and not all devices can use a wired connection There are however, several much neater & easier alternatives that might solve the problem. You can use “Powerline Adapters”, or wireless extenders and if you have a spare router, you may be able to configure that to act as an extender as well. In more details these are:•
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Powerline adapters can be used to extend the LAN port from your router to a PC etc, over your house electrical wiring. You plug one unit into a power socket by the PC/laptop and connect an ethernet cable between it & the PC. You then put plug another adapter in by the router, connect a second ethernet cable between that & one of the LAN ports on the router. The two powerline adapters have to be “paired” together. You can use more than one pair of these in the same property. Wireless Extenders – this allows the wireless signal to be boosted in areas of weak reception throughout the property.
Useful video This video on YouTube helps to explains how to install these units, I don't know how old it is, so there might be better units available currently than those used in the video, but the principle is basically the same:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-doVB7DozM
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Powerline Adapters & Wireless Extenders Powerline Adapters These can be purchased from numerous suppliers and made by several manufacturers. Some points to consider before buying are:• •
A low standby power consumption when no data is being transmitted, some units only use about 0.4W in standby mode. The speed they operate between the two units (some only work at 85M, which is slow) as well as the speed they offer on the PC/Router side (100M or 1G).
You should connect these adapters directly into wall power sockets, do not use extension cables as they may well reduce the speed that they operate at. I discovered one unconfirmed factor about them, which I hope does not upset your plans. The Powerline adapters may not work between two electric ring main circuits in your house. So if the router is downstairs & the other one upstairs and the two floors are on different rings mains from your consumer unit, they may not work, or not as good as you may expect. That said, the case may be worse if you have an RCD consumer unit, rather than one with fuses in it. However, some people have said that their ones worked fine. You may also get a slower speed between the two adapters, if they do work between the different mains power circuits. To check how many ring main circuits you have, you would need to get a qualified electrician to inspect your consumer unit for you.
Powerline adapter troubleshooting Units do not seem to work:http://help2.talktalk.co.uk/my-powerline-adapters-arent-working
Reset TalkTalk Powerline adapters:Do a full reset on them first, and then ideally to pair them you should have them in double socket next to each other. To reset them it is normally a case of pressing the “Reset” button in for one second – this should be documented in your user guide. Next press and long hold the pair button on first one until it starts flashing (listening), then press and let go pair button on second , they should pair up. Repeat for extra power lines, let new one you want to add 'listen' and press release on an already paired one. If in doubt, consult your user guide.
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Powerline Adapters & Wireless Extenders Wireless Extenders It is possible to purchase dedicated wireless extenders that can be used to extend a Wi-Fi signal to areas of poor reception. These come in various forms & often are combined with powerline adapters:1. Repeater type – this connects to the router's Wi-Fi signal in an area where it is not too bad & repeats a fresh signal out from itself. How good this is will depend on the reception around the property. 2. Wi-Fi extender that connects back to the router via a powerline adapter. This is the best sort of extender, as it uses a wired connection between itself & the router and will normally provide the best signal to difficult to reach areas. Obviously a wired connection is not always practical. So the extender often has one powerline adapter built in to it (but not always – check its specification first) and then pairs with another powerline adapter by the router, allowing a wired connection from there to the router. If you have a spare router, you maybe able to use that as the wireless extender. 3. There is a third option called WDS (Wireless Distribution System), which is an enhancement of option 1. This is where multiple wireless Access Points (APs) are linked together over their wireless networks. An Access Point is basically the same as the wireless side of a domestic broadband router. However, in the commercial arena it is very common to have separate Access Points, switches & routers. More details:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_distribution_system There are a few domestic broadband routers that will apparently support this, but it is only normally achieved via some non-standard firmware. Although I would have thought that this facility is aimed at commercial APs. Even when this option is offered, it does seem to be done in a proprietary manner, meaning if you have two APs made by different companies, their versions of WDS may not be compatible with each other & therefore will not work.
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Powerline Adapters & Wireless Extenders Wireless extenders incorporating powerline adapters As mentioned before, these represent the best wireless solution for the home environment, as the powerline adapters carry the LAN port from the router, via the mains wiring to another unit that incorporates a powerline adapter and the wireless extender in the same unit. These are often sold as a kit containing the powerline adapter that connects to the router & the combined powerline/wireless extender unit. The two units have to be paired together so as the routers LAN port is extended over the electrical wiring to the wireless extender. Some offer a “cloning” feature which initially requires a WPS connection to the router as well, allowing it to copy the wireless settings such as the network name (SSID) & password from your router. This should allow seamless connection changes as you move about the property based on which is giving the best signal to your device currently – the router or the extender. Points to consider prior to purchasing these:1. They will work best if the router LAN ports operate at 1Gbps, rather than 100Mbps, the same is the case for the powerline adapter that is going to physically connect to the router, that should work at 1Gbps. Otherwise you may well have a number of devices all working at 300Mbps or more connected to the extender. If the connection between the router & the powerline via ethernet cable was only 100M, you would have a bottleneck, thus reducing their overall speed to the internet. 2. Pay particular attention to the wireless specification of the extender unit. Does it meet your requirements, some things to consider are:▪ Is it dual band (2.4GHz & 5GHz)? ▪ With 5GHz does it support a channel range of at least 36 to 116? ▪ There are other issues to consider such as “Beamforming” and “MIMO”, but the specifications may not always tell you this sort of information. ▪ Ideally you would have a dual band router as well, but it is not always essential, it really depends how congested the 2.4GHz band is in your area, you would need a Wi-Fi analyser to identify this. Although they often offer the ability to “clone” the wireless settings of the router, it is worth checking if you can manually go in & change the wireless channel on the unit. If it cloned the channel number as well, you could have the extender & the router causing each other a lot of interference.
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Powerline Adapters & Wireless Extenders Using a second router as a wireless extender However, if you have a spare router, it may be possible to configure that to be a wireless extender (second Wireless Access Point), as in example 2 above. However you will either need a wired connection, or a pair of powerline adapters to get a wired connection back to the router. How successful this is will depend of the wireless capabilities of each unit as well as the speed of the LAN ports on the two routers, for best results these should both be able to run at 1Gbps (not just the normal 100M), the same goes for the LAN port(s) on the powerline adapters you are going to use as well. The next few pages cover how to configure a spare router in this manner.
Configuration Example This is based on the Huawei HG523a, but other routers will be similar. The Huawei HG633 is different to some others, making its configuration slightly simpler for this type of scenario. You will need the two routers connected via their LAN ports using either Cat5a (100M) or Cat5e (1G). Most routers now auto-detect cable types, so cross-over cables should not be required. http://www.talktalkmembers.com/t5/Computers-Gaming/Setting-up-a-second-router-as-a-slave-onyour-network/m-p/800353
Router Connection modes There can be some confusion over “Modem mode” & “Bridge mode”. These are totally different & both may not be available on all routers. This will hopefully explain the difference between these two modes:In “Modem mode” a router will simply train up to the ADSL signal & pass the allocated WAN IP address on to the other router. It will not act as another wireless access point. In “Bridge mode” another modem/router (call this router A) is connected to the ADSL line & has all normal Wi-Fi & LAN routing capabilities. Then a second router (call this router B) can be connected to one of the LAN ports on Router A. Router B acts as second Wi-Fi Access Point to improve Wi-Fi connectivity in difficult reception areas for router A. Router B in bridge mode no longer tries to route packets out on its internet interface, but sends them all out on the LAN port back to Router A who will send them out on its internet interface.
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Powerline Adapters & Wireless Extenders Broadband router In the DHCP configuration set the start ip address to be 192.168.1.3 (assuming the other router will be 192.168.1.2).
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Powerline Adapters & Wireless Extenders New Wireless AP Set this second router's management IP address to be something like 192.168.1.2. Disable DHCP. Go to Basic/Wan and change the Connection type from PPPoA to Bridge (which should turn off IP routing:-
You may have to tick the DHCP transparent transmission box (see help below). I am sceptical about this because DHCP-Relay takes an incoming DHCP broadcast & relays it out to another distant subnet. In the Port Binding section you may need to tick all of your LAN ports (again if you read the help, this seems unnecessary). Under service list only INTERNET needs to be checked and submit those settings. Now turn off, connect any LAN clients and turn on the router and your done!
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Powerline Adapters & Wireless Extenders Notes Connection mode It is used to specify whether the WAN connection is in routing mode or in bridge mode. In routing mode, the IP address needs to be set or is set to be obtained automatically for the WAN connection. In bridge mode, the IP address needs to be set or is set to be obtained automatically only on the LAN side. Port binding It is used to specify which LAN ports and WLAN ports are bound to the WAN connection. The bound LAN ports and WLAN ports can access the network through only the designated WAN connection. DHCP port transparent transmission If you enable the DHCP port transparent transmission, the specified LAN device can use the bridge mode (instead of the routing mode) on the WAN side of the gateway to automatically obtain an upstream public-network IP address on the WAN side. If you disable the DHCP port transparent transmission, the LAN device can automatically obtain only a private-network IP address allocated by the DHCP server in the address pool. Operation: the operation you want to do. set: modify the option of specify device type which you choose. delete: delete the device type which you choose. Update: modify the option of specify device type which you choose, and you can change the device name also.
HG633 Specific configuration Where you use the HG633 as the additional access point, this seems to be much simpler than other routers to configure (although I have not tested this myself). All you have to do is:1. Disable the DHCP on the HG633 2. Change the SSID, password & Wi-Fi security mode/encryption to the same as main router . Your device should take care of roaming . 3. Finally connect the HG633 to main router via a LAN port and restart both main router then reboot the HG633.
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Powerline Adapters & Wireless Extenders Wi-Fi Configuration Give both APs the same network name (SSID), the same security type (WPA2-PSK recommended), and the same wireless security passphrase. Many clients assume that these kinds of settings will be the same across all APs with the same SSID. There is no magic to making multiple-AP (roaming) 802.11 networks work. Wireless clients just assume that all APs with the same SSID are configured similarly and are all just different points of access to the same underlying wired network. A client will scan all channels looking for APs publishing the SSID it wants, and will pick whichever one suits its needs best (usually that means whichever one shows the highest signal strength). Once on the network, clients stay with the same AP as long as it is meeting the client's needs (i.e. as long as its signal strength is above a "good enough" threshold). If the client later thinks it could be better off with another AP on that network, it will do periodic scans of all channels looking for other APs publishing that SSID. If a scan turns up a candidate AP that is enough better than the AP it is currently on, it will automatically roam to the other AP, usually without so much as a missed frame. One roaming caveat: As another commenter pointed out, there are definitely poorly engineered clients out there with poor roaming algorithms or thresholds, which don't actually roam when they should, and thus end up being too "sticky", staying on the first AP they joined well after they could have been getting better performance and reliability with another AP that they are now closer to. Sometimes it helps to force the client's Wi-Fi interface to rejoin the network when you notice that a client has stuck to the wrong AP. If you have a lot of these buggy clients, then using the same SSID for multiple APs might not work well for you; you might want to use different SSIDs so you can more easily monitor and control which AP your client is associated to.* Assuming both APs are configured similarly and are connected to the same underlying network, roaming is seamless and invisible to the user (except nerds like me who run tools to watch for these things). Roaming events are invisible to applications using the network, although some low-level parts of the network stack might be notified of the event, so that, for example, your DHCP client can double-check that this new AP really is connected to the same network, so it can be sure your DHCP lease is still valid on this network. Some other users' Answers and Comments on this question erroneously suggested that wireless protocols or features like wireless relay or WDS might be needed for roaming, but that is absolutely incorrect. Those features are just ways to replace a wired Ethernet backhaul with a wireless one. For the sake of completeness, I should mention that there is a set of technologies, some proprietary, some standardized in IEEE 802.11F, known generally as Inter-Access Point Protocol. IAPP is a method by which generally enterprise-class APs can communicate with each other over the backhaul to optimize client roaming. But that's just an optimization, not a prerequisite for roaming. Roaming works "well enough" on networks both small and large without any IAPP going on.
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